GE's odd 'What's the Matter with Owen?' commercials are working like a charm, it says

When it comes to attracting young programmers to come work for a 123-year-old company, reverse psychology seems to work.

So GE is finding with its unusual ‘What’s the Matter with Owen?” commercial series, featuring a young programming fending off the disappointment from his family and friends that he took at job as a programmer at GE.

The TV commercials have been turning heads among the target recruits, college grads, says Tony Denhart, University Relations Leader at GE Corporate and Andy Goldberg, GE’s Chief Creative Officer.

“Finding relevancy with millennials is critically important because they will represent more than half of the US workforce by 2025,” says Denhart.

“GE has always done on-site college recruiting. It isn’t that our recruiting measures weren’t working — they were. But we saw an opportunity to up our game,” Goldberg says.

“We are seeing an increase of applications and interest in our leadership programs at multiple colleges. We are also seeing more interest from students, faculty and administrators to learn more about GE technologies,” says Denhart.

All told, after airing the commercials, visits to GE’s online recruitment site 66% month over month, they told Business Insider.

Here’s the one where the young programmer’s friends are far more impressed with the guy that got a job at the latest fun app maker.